Scarecrow
by Tetsu-roku
Summary: Tidus and Yuna have just moved into the neighborhood. But on Halloween night, they reveal the true curse... What is this curse? Read and find out!
1. Settling In

It's me again! Since it is almost All Hallows Eve, I thought I might create a new Halloween story!

Summary: Ever since they moved into the neighborhood, Yuna and Tidus have been wondering why every house had a scarecrow before and during Halloween. On All Hallows Eve, they reveal an age old curse...

Please R & R!

**Chapter 1: Settling In**

"Isn't it great to be in a nice neighborhood for a change?" Yuna asked Tidus. They had finally settled down into the quaint suburban town of Hydriel. The houses were all the same; each were white with a blue roof. The lawns were always cut, and everyone said hi to each other.

"It's the best," Tidus said, hugging Yuna. She giggled. "Stop it," she said playfully. "It's almost Halloween," she said to Tidus. "You ready for the trick-or-treaters?"

"Leave them to me!" he replied. "I'll hand out the candy."

Yuna smiled. "You do that." She heard a noise. She looked up, but nothing was there. "Tidus, look," she said, pointing at the houses. Tidus looked up. They stared in awe.

There was a scarecrow in every yard. Not real ones- decorative ones. Most were about three feet tall, decked with overalls and flannel shirts, with painted smiles flashing beneath their rumpled felt hats. Many were parts of displays that included a pumpkin and a harvest sheaf. Others stood alone. Some were simply doll-sized figures of dried silk twisted out of cornhusks and propped conspicuously in a window. But every house had one- except theirs.

Tidus sighed. "It makes no sense," he says. "Hmm?" Yuna replied, looking at Tidus. Tidus shrugged. "I mean, why would a town that doesn't have so much as a pasture or a field of corn be so obsessed with scarecrows? Don't people know that they are used to scare crows away? I mean, that's how they got their name, right?"

Yuna nodded. "It makes sense," she said.

Tidus continued. "What point is there to put up a stupid decoration in an upper-middle class neighborhood where the closest you can get to farming is the supermarket?"

Yuna nodded again. "That was very convincing."

Tidus grinned. "Thank you. Now, I'm hungry. Whip something up for us, would ya'?"

Yuna laughed. You're always hungry, aren't you? she thought. "Alright. How does apple pie sound?"

Tidus shrieked. "Apple pie! Bake it as fast as you can, woman!" he shouted. Then looked at Yuna. She was mad. "Uhh... sorry," he apologized.

"No problem," Yuna said. "Just wait." And she was off to the kitchen.

Tidus plopped down on the couch. Clearly, there was a lot that they had to get used to. Already, they felt like outsiders. When they were moving boxes into the home, he went shopping for a pumpkin. It had been tradition in Yuna's family to carve a jack-o-lantern and put it on their front porch. On Halloween night, the lit pumpkin would serve as a beacon for the kids. But the only pumpkins were found at the local supermarket and were part of scarecrow displays. He removed one from the case and brought it up to the cashier, but he was told that it wasn't sold as a solitary item.

"Why not?" he roared at the cashier.

"I'm sorry, sir, but the pumpkin and the scarecrow must be bought together," she said, getting ticked off by this guy's attitude.

"I don't want a scarecrow. I want a pumpkin. What is wrong with that!"

"I'm sorry, but you must pay for the scarecrow and the pumpkin."

Tidus sighed. "Fine. Charge me for the whole damn display. I'll do whatever I want with this stupid piece of crap later."

He felt good about his principles, even though it cost him fifty bucks.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Will Tidus and Yuna ever get used to their neighborhood? Will Halloween be a bit different than they're used to? Will Tidus ever let go of the pumpkin/scarecrow grudge? Tune in next time!


	2. All Hallows Eve

**Chapter 2: All Hallows Eve**

That Saturday, Tidus and Yuna carved ther jack-o-lantern. It took them 2 hours, but they finished it. It was a picture of a bat flying through the night. The bat was finely carved into perfection. The wings were perfect; the length and width of both wings were the same. Grinning from finishing the time-consuming carving, they put it on their porch. A few minutes later, they were a loud whump.

"What was that?" Yuna asked.

"I don't know," Tidus replied. "I'll check it out."

Tidus opened the door with a creak. He looked down on the porch. There were pumpkin pieces everywhere! Someone had hurled it at their house! Tidus walked back in. He turned to Yuna with anger on his face. "Yuna, give me the police," he said, enraged.

The police officer he reached was obviously stupid and not very emotional. When Tidus yelled at him about the smashed pumpkin, the officer just laughed. "I guess you haven't heard about Mischief Night," he said.

"Uhh... Mischief Night?" Tidus asked.

"Mischief Night. It's a night where kids can wreck stuff and T.P. houses for fun," the officer replied. "Kids are just being kids. Besides, it's not likely for us to catch the culprit if you didn't see him actually obliterate your pumpkin."

Tidus shook his fist in anger, but calmed down. "Thank you very much," he gritted through his teeth.

"No problem!" the officer replied gleefully, and hung up.

"Asshole," he said, and hung up.

Tidus would not be deterred. On Halloween morning, he drove to a store the next town over and bought an even bigger pumpkin. It was carved, lit, and brought out front under Tidus's eye.

The evening came on fast and showed all signs of being a perfect Halloween night. The sun had turned the distant hills a fiery red as it set. In its wake, the moon had risen with a pinkish glow that Tidus knew made it what they called a blood moon. The air was cool enough to sharpen smells and sounds. Tidus picked up the acrid waft of burning wood that told him that several fireplaces were lit.

He had stocked up on candy for the neighborhood kids. Yuna had wistfully suggested that they might get to meet some of the neighbors whose kids came trick-or-treating. By dusk they had already seen some kids out in costume walking around the block. But none of the kids came to their door. Tidus peeked through the blinds and saw a cluster of kids at the house next door. When he grabbed the bowl of candy, he looked out again, and saw the kids heading up the steps at the house on the other side.

Their house had been completely skipped over. It went on like that for the rest of the evening.

The neighborhood kids were out in droves, in costumes ranging from the store-bought to the crudely made homemade. They laughed and yelled as they paraded up and down the street. But in every case they passed by Tidus's and Yuna's house like they didn't even see it there.

Tidus and Yuna had come close to getting only one visitor that evening. Early on, Tidus had seen one kid who couldn't have been more than three or four come toddling up the front walk in his ghost sheet. Tidus had stepped into the foyer, planning to open the door as the child came up the steps. But through the glass panes at the top of the door, he saw a woman- probably the kid's mother- run to the child and yanked him away by the arm before he could even get halfway up the walk.

"What the hell was everyone's problem!" he yelled to no one in particular.

"Give them time," Yuna calmly replied. "Someone will come eventually."

Tidus guessed the kids were just going to the houses of friends and people they knew. It was probably a good safety precaution nowadays.

By ten o' clock, not a single trick-or-treater had come to their door. Tidus had offered to answer the doorbell while Yuna worked upstairs, but it seemed pretty pointless. The cries of the kids and the pounding of feet on the sidewalk had just suddenly ceased. Tidus looked through the front window and saw that the block was completely dark. It was as if everyone just disappeared. Come on, get a hold of yourself, he thought to himself. There's a logical explanation for all this. The neighbors were either sending a signal to the kids that Halloween was over, or they were turning in much earlier than usual.

"That must be it," he said to himself.

Yuna came downstairs. "Why don't you blow the candle out in the jack-o-lantern?" she asked him, and went back upstairs.

Tidus sighed as he put his shoes on. He was almost done tying his shoes when he was startled by a sound from the front porch.

Whummmp!

The stillness of the night had magnified the noise. It sounded like something had fallen on the floorboards. Opening the door, Tidus discovered another jack-o-lantern casualty. Someone had tossed it, candle and all, against the front door. This was worse than the one yesterday. The pumpkin was virtually pulverized. Stringy clumps spattered the door, and flecks of pumpkin dressed the walls several feet on both sides of the frame.

Tidus stared in awe. "No way," he said to himself. "There's no frickin' way this could have happened. That pumpkin was 3 times heavier than the last one. It would have taken considerable strength to make this kind of mess. No little kid out for Halloween could have done this!"

Tidus stood in the doorway, peering into the darkness as though he might see whoever was responsible for this prank. The candle in the jack-o-lantern had been smothered by soppy pulp, and he could smell that smoky, oily odor that he associated with a snuffed candle. But there was another, stronger smell behind it. A sweet-and-sour smell. It reminded him of that mixed aroma of alfalfa, manure, and newly turned earth that he associated with the country. As a kid, he remembered how overpowering it could seem whenever he drove by the recently mown hayfield. It was the first time he smelled it in this town.

What was putting that smell out so strongly?

"God, I'm going to kill whoever did this," he muttered under his breath.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Will Tidus ever find out who did this to his pumpkin? Could it have been a kid who threw it? Or was it something inhuman? Tune in next time!


	3. The Visitor

Hey everyone! I just love Halloween, don't you? It gives you those chills that someone might be watching you. You scare yourself just enough to believe anything you hear. And of course, there's the costumes and candy! Here's the last chapter of Scarecrow. Enjoy!

**Chapter 3: The Visitor**

_**Hey!**_

Tidus yelled into inky darkness, trying to scare off whoever had tossed his finely carved pumpkin. A light breeze made the treetops dance in the moonlight. Tidus heard a slithering rustle.

_Must be leaves,_ he thought to himself.

But he knew better than that. All the leaves had been off the trees a week ago. And that he and Yuna had raked the last of them out of their yard two days ago. _It could be more leaves from next door,_ he thought to himself. Then he thought for a moment. _That's not right,_ he thought. _My neighbors raked their leaves yesterday..._

The wind made a rustling sound again, and Tidus felt the hairs on his arms prickle. Rubbing them against the chill, he stepped inside. He took of his shoes and headed into the kitchen. He was just about to call the police to complain a second time when he heard the rustling sound again.

_Sssssssssssssssssss..._

It was coming from the front porch.

_Sssssssssssssssssss..._

Much closer than it had been before.

It was followed by a clumping sound. Like something hitting the floorboards at regular intervals.

_**Pok...Pok...Pok.**_

Tidus turned off the lights.

"What's going on!" he heard Yuna scream from upstairs.

Tidus leaned into the stairway. "Yuna, grab our weapons."

Yuna appeared at the top of the stairs. "Why?" she asked, concerned.

"Just get them!" he roared.

Yuna sobbed, then went into the bedroom to find Nirvana and Caladbolg.

On tiptoe, he advanced toward the front window.

_Sssssssssssssssssssssssss..._

Whatever it was, it was being dragged across the front screens.

Sticking his fingers between the slits of the blinds, Tidus peered out. _Nothing there,_ he thought.

_Sssssssssssssssssssssss..._

It brushed over the screen on the window near the door. Tidus tried to smile. "Someone's going through a lot of effort to put a Halloween scare on us," he said, trying to cheer himself up.

_**Pok...Pok...Pok.**_

It sounded like footsteps outside the front door. Or someone was tapping the porch with a pole. Tidus moved silently upstairs into the doorway of the bedroom.

"Did you find them yet?" he asked Yuna.

"Not yet," she said as she was throwing stuff out of the closet.

_Great, just great,_ he thought as he headed towards the foyer. Tidus peeked through the window panes.

Someone was standing on the porch. He could just make out an overcoat and a slouch hat on the head. The person was carrying a walking stick in his hand, thumping it on the porch planking. He could also make out that nasty odor from before.

_A late trick-or-treater?_ he thought to himself.

Tidus clicked the light on as he pulled the door open. The odor almost driven him to shut the door on this kid's face. Now it was ten times stronger and nauseatingly potent. Concentrated, it reminded him less of wet straw and more of the stench of decay and death. The person on the porch was dressed as a scarecrow, with shocks of loose straw sticking out around his wrists and neck. He turned his face up to look directly up at Tidus.

And Tidus realized that the figure wasn't wearing a costume.

Black holes marked where its eyes should have been. Its mouth was stitched shut, but Tidus could have sworn the cheeks puffed in and out, huffing and puffing as though it was alive. What Tidus had first thought was a nose was actually a field spider the size of its hand. Other things he couldn't quite see wriggled in the straw jutting out beneath the figure's hat.

The scarecrow stepped forward. Tidus stepped back. He saw that what he mistook for a walking stick was actually a weathered wood stave. It had a crossbar at the top. Its other end was a pointy stake.

It stepped forward again. "Stay back!" Tidus yelled, and shut the door. But the thing was able to stop the door from shutting. Tidus moved back. "Yuna! Get those weapons now!" he screamed at the top of his lungs.

The thing moved fast. Tidus never had a chance.

Yuna heard screaming. "Tidus? What happened?" she shouted as she stepped out of the bedroom and at the top of the stairs. She gasped as she saw the thing.

Yuna didn't have a chance either.

The next day, the neighbors saw two scarecrows up on poles at the new peoples' house. They didn't look like the other scarecrows around the neighborhood. They wore Tidus and Yuna's clothes. And they weren't stuffed with straw.

But everyone agreed from the way they flapped loosely in the wind that they did a good job of scaring things away.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Well, that's it! I hoped you enjoyed the story. Reviews would be greatly appreciated.


End file.
